First of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure that everyone understands that no one has questioned the accuracy of the financial analysis. Certainly it's better, and we will take the recommendation, to have more than one person look at it, but let's begin by understanding that the financial evaluation was accurate.
As to whether or not it's easy to believe the result would not have changed based on the evaluation, I appreciate that it's difficult to understand for a person just approaching the subject. This is a very complicated contract. I think the person who is questioning has understood that the financial part was only 25% of the total evaluation.
I also want to make sure everyone understands that this was not a secret allocation behind closed doors, with no documentation. It was clearly stated in the request for proposals how the evaluation would be done, so all bidders understood that it was 75-25.
The reason it was 75-25 was in fact discussed by the committee members, who decided on the evaluation. The fact is, it wasn't documented, but I can assure you that the two principal reasons were that the quality of the service was more important than the price, and also, relevant to your questioning, that when we put out the request for information, bidders came to us and said that the incumbent already had the service going, that they'd already taken their start-up costs, so someone new coming in would be at a disadvantage if one only looked at cost. So they asked us whether we would consider reducing the impact of price on the total evaluation. So it was a desire of both those who were not the incumbent and the program managers that the impact of price be reduced.
Now, you say, well, how come such a big difference didn't actually result in a change in the ultimate result? Well, of course, in addition to being only 25% of the total, this was only one of six issues that were considered financially. So I can assure you that when you do the numbers, it is a correct statement that this would not have changed the result on its own.